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“Mine.” His snarl was the only warning she had before she felt him retreat, lifting her and turning her before pushing her to her knees on the bed and mounting her with dominant strength. Pushing her shoulders to the bed with one hand while holding her hips in place with the other he thrust into her from behind, pushing deeper with each impaling drive of his hips until he was buried to the hilt and moving with furious strokes that ensured her inability to tighten the grip of those intimate muscles fully.
Spreading her thighs further apart with his knees Graeme came over her, his teeth locking in the delicate flesh between neck and shoulder, biting just hard enough to send flash-fire sensations erupting from the spot his teeth gripped her flesh to merge with the fiery brilliance of sensation exploding through her senses with each thrust of his cock into her body.
The ecstatic slash of pleasure and pain whipping through her body tightened the spiraling sensations building through her senses. She was overwhelmed with the desperation for more, for harder, deeper, for the blinding chaotic ride to that point where their souls merged in explosion of pure rapture and melding ecstasy.
The feel of his erection thrusting savagely inside her, burying to the hilt with each stroke, burning past nerve endings so sensitive to each touch that it only fueled that wildfire burning out of control inside her, only pushed her higher, faster. She was flying on the savage pleasure, female growls matching the male snarls of extreme pleasure vibrating against her back until her claws were shredding the sheets beneath her, her hips churning beneath him. A rush of sensation stormed through her body, pulsing through her swollen clit and the desperate grip flexing around each intrusion. It flamed through her mind, exploded through her senses and detonated in the depths of the center of her body with a power and ecstasy so powerful and savage she felt herself thrown into the blinding, fiery heat of release.
Immediately her muscles clamped on the erection burying full length inside her, rippling over it, sucking at it as he stiffened behind her and exploded with a low, drawn-out snarl of intense, male pleasure.
In that second, their senses collided once again, opening to each other, a part of each other, intensifying each surging wave of blinding sensation until they were locked in each other’s souls. The barb located beneath the wide crest of his cock became erect, extending into the hidden, nerve-rich area just beneath her clit. The pressure of the throbbing extension spilling its own release exploded in the swollen bud, sending another violent wave of pleasure shuddering through her body as animal instincts surged closer to those of the male behind her, locking them inside each other’s soul for an eternal heartbeat of time. They felt the other’s unconditioned love, the fierceness of each other’s needs, his to protect her, hers to fight beside him. They felt the acceptance of strengths, of weaknesses, and knew the battles they’d face. They each felt the eternal bonds of love that ignited Mating Heat and fueled the pleasure as well as the primitive responses it caused.
In the blinding seconds of release, they were so much a part of each other that there was no hiding, no covering each facet of who and what they were as well as the vision each had of the other. The beauty of the world they found for those fragile seconds within the soul of the other erased past hurts, secrets and fears.
If death came tomorrow, one wouldn’t go without the other. There was no existing without a chance to find such beauty again. No existing without the love, shelter and peace they found in finding each other.
As the last pulse of brutal pleasure shuddered through their senses and that moment in time passed, they collapsed against the bed, exhaustion swamping them and pulling them into a sleep so deep, so filled with healing comfort that the scars of the past, of nightmares and fears slowly began to ease.
As they slept, the monster that had awakened years before to protect the mate eased from sleep and kept watch. Ever vigilant, ever searching for enemies, cunning and far too primal to ever exist alone, it ensured survival by ensuring the safety of the mate.
The boy might not have known what he held when Brandenmore gave him the babe, the animal may not have sensed it, but the instinct that created the monster had known, just as it had known that the babe’s survival depended on ensuring all the facets of what made the Breed Gideon, became one hardened being rather than human and animal struggling for balance. It melded the two, infused them with the savagery of its primal strength and ensured the babe would live, mature, and become a mate strong enough to soothe the often volatile strength and intelligence of the breed whose soul she would possess.
The monster had known, just as it had known other monsters existed as well. Some slept, some waited, a few battled, but all existed for one purpose: the mate it was sworn to protect.
• CHAPTER 23 •
Cat came awake slowly, her lashes lifting as she turned her head to stare at the mate sleeping next to her. He slept, deep, but a part of him never slept, she knew that, had sensed it before with a vague trepidation, and accepted it now with thankfulness. Whatever that primal, fiercely intelligent part of Graeme that existed actually was, she wasn’t certain. But she knew without a doubt that it would ensure Graeme’s survival, as well as her own.
As Graeme slept deep beside her, that part of him was intensely vigilant, focused on her for the moment, watching, waiting to see her response to the primal awareness she now sensed.
When she did nothing more than allow a small smile to tip her lips as recognizing what she was certain Graeme was unaware of it, she could almost feel the focus shift from her to ensure once again that no threats were present.
Perhaps it was an instinct all breeds had to some point. That extra sensory perception that awakened them when danger neared, or warned them of danger. The subconscious, though in Graeme it seemed highly adept.
Whatever it was, monster as he called it, instinct as she thought of it, it had come awake with a vengeance at a time when Graeme would have certainly died otherwise.
That thought sobered her and reminded her of the past night and events that were still far too hazy in her mind while other sensations and knowledge were finally clear.
She’d fought, she’d endured another woman’s life, endured the unquenched need for freedom for this, for the need to hold the man, the Breed she knew she belonged to. The one she knew belonged to her.
That moment of realization had come at the very second she’d felt her spirit being torn from her body, in that striking heartbeat between life and death. Drifting, alone, aware and yet disconnected, Cat had seen her life, her past in such vivid detail. Even her photographic memory couldn’t have processed the information her soul had stored and released in that blinding moment.
The moments of connection with Graeme, those seconds where the animal senses they possessed met and merged, she’d blocked all she’d seen inside him, all she could have known about the Breed she loved with her entire being.
He hadn’t deliberately marked her as his mate, he’d marked her with Bengal DNA because of the unique strength and wildness of both body and spirit that those creatures possessed. DNA he’d believed was superior to any other and better fitted to ensure her life.
She saw the moment Brandenmore laid her in the arms of the boy Graeme had been, felt the spirit of the creature known as Gideon fighting for freedom, enraged with the confinement he endured. There was nothing to fight for, no chance of escape or of life within the cages he’d known all his life. Until a four-day-old infant was placed in his arms. The animal inside him stilled, the savage impulses quieting and pure cunning overtook him.
Brandenmore had given the young creature he subconsciously feared the key to destroying him. The child the animal inside him recognized as intrinsic to his survival. There was no thought of mating, no sexual impulses, just a knowledge that she was his now and she was too helpless, too sick and frail to fight for herself. The savage nature, the monster strengthening inside him knew she had to live though. For the boy to live, the child must live.
Cunning intelligence, far more advanced than even his creator guessed, became stealthy, manipulative and deceitful. The emerging creature he called his monster stepped back and allowed the human and animal to meld completely within his senses and the intelligence he possessed only multiplied, amplified.
The creature Dr. Foster had envisioned had far surpassed his dreams, she realized. At any time after that moment Gideon could have escaped. He could have slipped from the research center and disappeared entirely, but to do so, he would have had to leave Cat behind. His brother was strong enough to follow him, but his Cat wasn’t. And later, once Bennett arrived and sensed the threat the Bengal alpha could be, he ensured there was no way Gideon could escape without the chance of weapons discharging. Graeme had refused to chance Cat’s survival in a firefight.
Once he’d managed her release and escape, she and Judd had forced the transfusion to save him, to ensure a survival that would have occurred far more slowly, possibly ensuring his recapture much quicker, his animal senses as well as human responses rioted. The mating hormone had already been found in her system, though not in Graeme’s despite the tests that affirmed their match. Once her blood met his though, Dr. Foster had feared it would take hold of Graeme and create needs and desires Cat was far too young to face, and Graeme was far too honorable to tolerate. It would destroy him.
Repulsed by such visions of what his future could be he’d lashed out at her, intending to make her hate him, to drive her from him and ensure she never came searching for him, never tempted what he feared could happen until he returned to her once she’d reached an age he believed allowed her the maturity to deal with it.
He’d wanted her to have a life first. To be free. That need he’d had for her had been clear, so much a part of him she wondered how she could have not sensed it before that moment her soul had met his.
